Coughlin Asked Haynesworth to Do Wrong

Albert Haynesworth has been a man of relatively few words since he's arrived in D.C., but most of the words have been fairly captivating. He came through again for Newsday's Bob Glauber, who talked to the defensive tackle this week about how the Giants expressed interest in him during the offseason.

The Giants, of course, are coached by Tom Coughlin, a man who had once grilled Haynesworth on his ethics before he was drafted, when Coughlin was still in Jacksonville.

"I spent three or four hours on the phone with him the day before the draft," Haynesworth said. "He kept asking me these questions that didn't quite make sense to me. He's like, 'OK, if I ask you to do something and you know it's the wrong thing to do, what are you going to do?' So I'm like, 'Well, I'll do the right thing.' And he said, 'No, do what I say.' We kind of clashed at the time. I said, 'Yeah, I don't need to go to Jacksonville.' "

That crazy Coughlin and his love of following orders. If the sentiment was accurate, it's actually fairly disturbing, and you can see why it wouldn't quite make sense to a college kid. Something tells me Jim Zorn would go in a different direction on this particular question.

(And speaking of doing right, DeAngelo Hall is quoting Darrell Green on his blog, which is the right way to go for a Skins cornerback.)

Presuming Coughlin is talking about what to do in a football game, and not committing a crime, or engaging in some type of immoral act, isn't Coughlin's answer the right one? If the coach tells you to do something, you do it; otherwise, you end up with 11 guys on the field, each convinced they know the "right" way and each doing something different (see Lavar Arrington).